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Character Creation - Display

Frontier 1879 will be using Boot Hill 3rd Edition rules, which is based on a d20 dice system (earlier versions of Boot Hill were percentile based). Character creation in Boot Hill is much less complex than in most role-playing games.

Like all RPG's, there are Attribute scores that fill out the physical stature and hardiness of the character, as well as scores that flesh out the mental and congenial attitudes as well. However, unlike most other RPG's, Boot Hill has no "classes", and characters do not progress along any character advancement based on "levels". Once a character is rolled up, the player then decides what the character's "career" path will be based on a set of Skills (out of many to choose from). Each Skill is assigned so many skill points, which determines the character's proficiency with that particular skill - the higher the number, the more proficient the character is with any given skill. Characters advance throughout the game by either learning new Skills, or advancing their knowledge of known Skills, which is done through - essentially - experience point expenditure.

I will run down the character creation process one step at a time below. Use the examples here to assist you with creating your character for the Frontier 1879 campaign, and if you have any questions, please post them on the Questions and Answers thread.

When rolling up a character for the Frontier 1879 campaign, please use this thread to do so. Create a reply post, and use that to roll your dice and display your character's Attributes, Skills, physical appearance, and any other relevant information you would like to have be generally known.

The method I'd like all players to use when creating their characters is to roll 2d10 five times, adding the relevant modifier from Table 1A below to each roll. Then place the scores in the Attributes of your choice. This provides the players with the opportunity to tailor their scores to a pre-conceived idea of what they want their character to be.

Note: Keep note of the fact that while Strength, Coordination, and Observation all get the full score rolled (and modified), the score selected for Stature and Luck are halved (rounded up).

Character Skills
There are 57 "work" Skills to choose from, and 5 weapon Skills to choose from. Work Skills range from everything from Accounting to Preaching/Theology to Wrangling. The five weapon Skills are Archery, Brawling, Knife/Sword, Pistol, and Rifle/Shotgun.

The number of initial Skills that a player is eligible for is determined by adding together all of the character's Attributes, and then consulting with Table 2A below.

Once the player has determined how many skills their character has available to them as initial skills, then the player may begin to select the skills they wish their character to have by consulting Tables 3A and 3B . The number of initial Skills can also be termed "Skill Points" or "Points" for reference below.

Skill Selection - When selecting skills, the character has a 1 (one) skill level in the given skill selected. Each Skill selected by the player can be viewed as one "point" being spent. A player can, therefore. decide to put more than one Skill Point in a given skill.

Note : A player cannot spend more than half of their Skills on weapon skills.

[EXAMPLE : John is rolling up his character, Michael "Mickey" Isaacs. After rolling for his Attributes, Mickey ends up with 10 Initial Skills. Looking through the Skill lists, he decides on the following Skills: Bartending(1), Cooking(1), Teamster(1), Cow Handling(1), Gambling(2), Roping(1), Wrangling(1), Pistol(1), and Rifle/Shotgun(1). Note that he selected Gambling twice, which gave him two Skill points in Gambling.]
Table 3A - Work Skills

Notes :
* - Prerequisite for this skill is the skill Literacy.
** - Fast Draw is a required skill if the player wishes the character to be able to quickly skin their smokewagon in a fight.
+ - All Boot Hill characters can ride a horse, this skill is for use in unusual circumstance, such as trick riding, etc.
++ - Throwing is used for all thrown objects, combat related or not.
+++ - Few people in the West actually knew how to swim. Without this skill, characters are deemed to not know how.

Table 3B - Weapon Skills

Code:

Archery Brawling Knife/Sword Pistol Rifle/Shotgun

Character Handedness
Players have the option to simply choose whether their character is right or left handed (but they must choose one or the other at character creation). However - players also have the option of attempting to determine if their character is ambidextrous. The player simply rolls 1d20 - if the roll is a 20, then the character can use either hand equally well and never pays an off-hand penalty.

Character Description
The player then needs to describe what the character looks like to someone the character would encounter on the road, or in town. The player can get as detailed, or be as brief, as necessary.

Character Background
Character backgrounds are important, as I regularly will use background information at times from character histories to spice up a game or campaign. The background can be as detailed as the player wishes it to be - however, a few things that need to be indicated are ancestry (at least to grandparent level), place of birth, if they have any siblings or not, and any significant things that happened during the character's life up to the point of game start that affected them in some way (including any people that were a part of said history that may have friendships, rivalries, hatreds, etc.).

Note : The Frontier 1879 campaign will be based on real world Old West history up to the year 1879 and beyond. I plan on making the basic area played in (at least to start) in the Colorado / Arizona / New Mexico general area.

Character Equipment
This should be a list of equipment that the character carries on their person in a typical outing when on horseback. Typical Western items should be included, such as bed rolls, tents, weapons, saddle, changes of clothes, rope (and length thereof), etc. Players are free to equip their characters within reason.

Note : With regards to weapons, if a player is developing a character with the Fast Draw skill, please note whether or not the character has a "fast draw revolver". Guns of this ilk were typically modified by their owners - any part of the gun that could "hang" on a draw, such as the front sight, were filed down, or off, to make drawing the pistol faster and smoother.

A note on "Hit Points"
You have probably noticed that there are no "hit points" indicated anywhere during the character creation process. This is because Boot Hill does not utilize a hit point system.

In Boot Hill, a character can only die if they receive a mortal wound during a fight. There are four types of wounds - a "mere scratch", light wound, serious wound, and mortal wound. No amount of scratches or light wounds combine to become a serious wound, and no amount of serious wounds combine to become a mortal wound. Essentially, a character could conceivably be shot 5 times - 3 serious wounds and 2 light wounds - and he would recover and continue adventuring afterward. However, a single mortal wound means that character has met his fate.

Additionally, the system has what's known as "wound points". These are equal to the character's Strength Attribute. Each time a character is wounded in combat, the number rolled on the d6 for wound severity is the number of wound points received by that character for that wound. If at any time the character receives additional wound points that carry beyond their wound point amount, that character will pass out from blood loss and / or shock (but they will not die - again, that can only occur through receiving a mortal wound).

---------------------------------------------Name : Michael "Mickey" IsaacsSex : MaleAge : 27Hand : Right HandedBirthplace : Kansas City, MissouriDate of Birth : August, 1852
---------------------------------------------Attributes -Strength : 14Coordination : 19Observation : 16Stature : 10Luck : 7
---------------------------------------------Skills -
Bartending (1), Cooking (1), Teamster (1), Cow Handling (1), Gambling (2), Roping (1), Wrangling (1), Pistol (1), and Rifle/Shotgun (1)
---------------------------------------------Equipment -
Saddle and bridle (w/ blanket), 2 saddle bags, bedroll, tent, 10x10 foot tarp (canvas), 2x 50' coils of rope, 2x canteens, trail rations (2 weeks), bowie knife, winchester 1873 lever action .44-40, colt .45 revolver (single action), 2x decks of playing cards, 200 rounds .44-40 rifle ammunition, 200 rounds .45 pistol ammunition, rifle saddle sheath, leather pistol holster and belt (brown), 2x sets extra pants - shirts - socks, wide brimmed "cowboy" hat - felt (brown), 1 bottle whiskey, 1 lb bag tobacco, 1 box cigarette paper, 2 boxes "Lucifer" matches, riding gloves (natural), 1 pair riding boots (tan)
---------------------------------------------Description -
Isaacs is a medium height man with tanned, leathery skin, light brown hair and hazel eyes. Due to years living out of doors under the sun, he has a weathered appearance, and deep crows feet from squinting into too many low suns. He doesn't appear very powerful, but he is extremely well coordinated, which is quickly apparent when one meets him. He prefers to wear dark brown, rust, and black colored clothing. Isaacs rarely carries a pistol unless out in the wilderness.
---------------------------------------------Background -
Born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1852 to poor parents, Isaacs' childhood was unpleasant and neglectful. When he was 10 years old his much older brother went to fight in the Civil War, and was killed at Holly Springs in 1863. This set his parents into a reclusive lifestyle, and Isaac's was ignored for the most part until he ran away in spring of 1868. Unable to find work due to his age, Isaacs drifted from town to town working petty jobs until he was taken under by a cattle rancher in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in the fall of 1869. It was here that Isaacs finaly found a sense of purpose, and quickly worked his way up to teamster during the cattle drives up to Dodge City in the next few years. Unfortunately, the large sums of money earned at the end of each drive eventually got Isaacs into trouble - he began to gamble occasionally and by 1876 was frequently gambling his earnings heavily. This led to an altercation in Dodge City in the late summer of 1877, where Isaacs was wounded in a fight with a Texan over a switched bet - Isaacs shot and wounded the Texan in return. This incident led to Isaacs being let go from the cattle drive cowboys, and so he turned his face west and headed to Colorado in search of his fortune. After drifting from town to town on odd jobs, 1879 found Isaacs employed by Wells Fargo as a stagecoach driver based in Denver City.
---------------------------------------------

Name : Shawn HodgeSex : MaleAge : 35Hand : Right HandedBirthplace : Nashville, TennesseeDate of Birth : April, 1844
---------------------------------------------Attributes -Strength : 11Coordination : 18Observation : 16Stature : 7Luck : 7
---------------------------------------------Skills -
Rifle/Shotgun (2), Knife/Sword (1), Carpentry (1), Farming (1), Scouting (1), Survival (1), Stealth (1)
---------------------------------------------Equipment -
Saddle and bridle (w/ blanket), saddle bags, bedroll, tent, large blanket (tan), rope (50 foot), carpenter’s tools (hammer, hand-saw, etc), canteens (2), trail rations (2 weeks), skinning knife (5 inches), .52 caliber military issue Sharps rifle, .52 caliber ammunition (100 rounds), rifle saddle sheath, 2 changes of clothing (pants, shirts, socks, etc), ranch coat (navy blue), flat-top hat (dark gray), riding boots (brown) tobacco (1 lb bag), cigarette paper (1 box), matches (2 boxes), small hand mirror, straight razor, shaving soap
---------------------------------------------Description -
Hodge is of average height and slightly built, he looks comprised mostly of skin, bone and precious few wiry muscles. His mahogany skin bears the marks of a hard life of labor, and is stretched thin across his bony body and face. A usually stolid and dour-looking fellow, Hodge's strangely youthful and bright blue-gray eyes never lose their glimmer, even when he is at his lowest. Hodge prefers to keep his head shaven, but sports a well-groomed beard.
---------------------------------------------Background –
Shawn Hodge was born a slave, and stayed a slave for the first 17 years of his life. However, with the break out of the Civil War, and spurred on by the recent death of his mother (the only family he had), he fled north to Indiana, and subsequently joined the Union army. He earned some small degree of notoriety (amongst his fellow soldiers) as a sharpshooter, but when the war finally came to a close, he found himself in little better position than before. Slavery might have been abolished, but discrimination had not. And the black soldiers who served in the Union army received little compensation, and even less recognition. Hodge spent the next handful of years working various jobs for anyone who would offer it to him. Everything from carpenter to farm hand, Hodge did whatever work he could find. But as the years past, he grew ever more cynical and disheartened. Finally becoming fed up with life, his mind and heart both weary, he traveled to the west, in hopes of finding a more fulfilling existence, a place to truly call home. But it appears as if he is destined to remain caught in an endless cycle of wandering…

---------------------------------------------
Background - William Prentiss was born in Powhatan County, Virginia in 1847 to a family of ranchers. His life was mostly uneventful untill the start of the Civil War, when a good part of the men in his family joined the Virginian Army. When he became of age, he also joined the Confederate Army and served briefly in Mosby's Rangers right up until Col. Mosby disbanded his command when the War ended in 1865. Since Mosby was a friend of the family, he took William under his wing for a period and was trained well, but was kept out of the hardest engagements. William saw a lot of death, but has yet to kill a man even though he has been in a few engagments during his brief stint in the military. The War changed William, and he has been wandering the country side since the war ended, taking jobs on cattle drives as he can get them.

Rider is around 6ft tall, and wel built. He is tanned, usually sporting a small beard which he shaves about once a month. His clothes are all well worn, as is his rifle, but it is well maintained.
---------------------------------------------Background -
Born in Australia, Rider isn't native to America by any stretch of the imagination. He didn't move to the states until about 5 years ago. It is no secret back in Australia he was what's called a 'Driver' which is essentially a Cowboy in Australia. Not many people go to talking to him about his past, but not many people get to talking to him in the first place.

He was born to native Australian parents, though his grandfather on his mother's side was actually from England. His parents had a small farm not too far inland, and he often went out to work with the cattle or just go riding. He and his family, while not on the best of terms with the indigenous people, were certainly better off than most others around them. Ian was especially liked by quite a few of them. He would often sneak of to go hunting with them or to just walk, and he even learned a bit of their language. Enough to get by at least.

Just like the west, Australia had it's share of Gold Rushes, but the laws and help in Australia were even more scarce than out west. Ian returned from one of his frequent outings to find his family had been shot, and most of the things in his house had been stolen. He was 16.

Almost a man in everyone's eyes anyway, he ran off and tried to join the British Navy. They, of course, wouldn't have him for anything important (not being a national born citizen and all) but he was still hired on for a while, and learned a bit while earning some coin. When he was 23 he left and bought back up his families land, but never really stayed there. Instead he started Driving (cattle driving) and became quite good at it, coupling what his father had taught him and what the indigenous people had taught him. When he was 25 he married a young lass from town. Pretty girl. They had been smitten for a long time, and he finally managed to convince her father to let them marry.

They had a beautiful daughter.

He settled down much as his father had done, raised cattle, and raised his family. He had a tidy little sum of money and a nice little piece of land. Everything was going well, and of course the world couldn't have that. Disease struck in town, and his wife fell ill. The Doctor's did what they could, but she passed away soon after. Torn with grief, Ian packed up his daughter and the things he could and left. He sold the cattle, the farm, everything, and the two of them moved to America. A fresh start.